The trouble with 50 Shades of Grey

Fifty Shades of Grey, by EL James

For those not in the know, 50 shades of Grey began life as an AU Twilight Fanfiction, casting Edward as the human Dominant and Bella as his Submissive. It was very popular and since being published by a twilight fanfic publishing house (with names changed to Christian and Anastasia and a few other details altered) it has broken records and made headlines across the world. It was just bought by Vintage (an imprint of Random House) for a 7 figure sum.

Love it or loath it, everyone is talking about 50 Shades of Grey.

I wont comment on the fanfic element because many others have done that and besides, I don't believe that fanfic writes are inherently bad writers. What does trouble me though, if the BDSM elements. In case you're an innocent, that's Bondage, Domination, Sadism, Masochism.

The 'sadism' in that acronym should give you an idea where this is heading. In case you think that BDSM is all rollplay and tie and tease, let me assure you, it isn't.

[WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES AT THE FOLLOWING LINKS]

This is what true BDSM is. Is this love?   Or this?   Is this sexy?   Maybe it's better -  if they bleed?   Perhaps humiliation is more your kink?   Nothing says 'I love you' like making your beloved sleep in a dog cage.

Think of someone you love but not in a sexual way (mother, daughter, sister, brother, father, niece, nephew, friend). How would you feel if someone did this to them?  If you're anything like me, you'd want to rip their heads off, even if your loved one consented!

I'm open minded when it comes to sex; I think prostitution should be legalised; I've tried most things before I decide I don't like then, and while I think the porn industry legislation should be tightened, it's only to protect workers from being misused and to protect the young.

This book isn't about kinky sex though, it's about sado-masochism but whenever anyone has a problem with the BDSM elements in this book, someone comes out crying "but it's consensual!" EL James even says that as long as it's "safe, sane and consensual", it's okay.

I'm sorry, but that's not a good enough excuse, nor is it a legal excuse. As a British woman, EL James should know that the law here doesn't recognise ones rights to consent to physical harm. I know someone who consented to be raped, because she was frightened about what he'd do to her kids if she protested and they woke up. Does that make it okay?

There was a time when women were property and most women considered that to be perfectly fine; men were stronger, they should be our protectors. Book after book was written by well respected men, reinforcing how inferior we were to men, in intelligence, temperament, constitution and many other ways. When the suffragettes were campaigning for the vote, many women disagreed not just with their methods but also with their cause! They consented to be second class citizens.

You see, it's not only men who are sexist; because of the environment we are raised in, women can be just as guilty. For too long we have been second class citizens and those messages still exist in society and have echoed down through the generations.

Consent is all very well but just because you consent to something, doesn't make it right. How many people self harm? No one is forcing them to, so are we to assume by that logic that self harm okay? If not, how can allowing another person to do you physical or mental harm ever be all right, even if it is consensual? It's just self harm by proxy. Look at those images above, how can you pretend that even with consent, it's not harmful? 

Or is it that because a man is getting sexual gratification from a woman's pain, it's somehow okay?

Have we really progressed so little in our thinking that we are still willing to subjugate our own needs and endure unnecessary pain so that our men might be happy? How is that healthy for anyone?

Were the roles reversed, and a woman was seducing a man into consensual whippings and being dominated, would you still find it as sexy? If not, why not?

Twilight, the saga 50 Shades is based on

Perhaps because subconsciously, you have absorbed the same messages many of us have, that a woman's natural role is submissive. I too received those messages, but I am aware of my own innate sexism and allow my head to do my thinking for me, rather than my emotions.

In my opinion, Twilight was troubling in it's representation of relationships, but even more so in it's representation of Bella, who literally falls apart when Edward leaves her! However, when Bella is finally made a vampire and becomes Edward's equal, he is no longer over protective and domineering. Plus her 'gift' surpassed all the other vampire's powers so all in all, I forgave those books their flaws, hoping that young readers would see that Edward isn't human, and wanting a relationship like that is an impossibility.

50 shades is teaching a new generation that being submissive is not only okay, that it can be great! I fail to see how the female Sub character will ever reach equality with her Dom, as Bella did with Edward. How can this kind of relationship ever be healthy and equal?

That is not a message I want to pass onto my children, or any woman for that matter.

Read this series if you must, there's nothing wrong with fantasy, but never forget that it's messages are extremely sexist and damaging, especially to those who are young. And this book is a fanfic based on a YA novel, of course children are reading it; if not in it's current form, certainly when it was a still just a fanfic hosted on fan websites.

ETA 14/04/12: Having discussed this book and it's ending with someone who has read it, what worries me most about this series now is the "she can change him" aspect.

What an evil, pervasive little piece of fiction that is. Just yesterday I watched an interview on the BBC with a woman who was blinded by her boyfriend; he gouged her eyes out and then held her captive for another 12 hours. He had been abusive before, obviously, and she had protected him, believing that she could change him. That's far from the first time that I've heard that from an abuse victim, though it is the most recent and one of the worst.

Still, were this just fanfic or erotica I probably wouldn't mind so much, but that fact that this is going mainstream, that it has been bought by (and therefore approved of) by Random House, that it has a film deal in the pipeline... That takes it away from a sexual fetish and makes it acceptable. It reinforces all these awful stereotypes about women, that we are submissive, that we are nurturing, that the love of a good woman can change a man, that enduring pain (physical or emotional) is what we do and it's even better when we endure that for our men because, after all, what's the point of life without a man?

Although this relationship would be just as fucked up were it a man submitting to a woman, I can't help but think that it wouldn't have even a fraction of it's current popularity, because it wouldn't play along with our current gender norms.

Related: The Trouble with Twilight